


Junji Ito Crossover: Uzumaki/Gyo

by NOT_Kirie_Goshima



Category: Gyo, Uzumaki
Genre: Age Dysphoria, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Related, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Crossover Pairings, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Heavy Angst, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Non-Canon Relationship, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicide Attempt, Time Skips, poor Shuichi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-13 22:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4539096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NOT_Kirie_Goshima/pseuds/NOT_Kirie_Goshima
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shuichi Saito wakes up after having been frozen inside the Spiral, only to find himself in 1990s Tokyo, the human race critically endangered due to a disgusting plague, Kirie presumed deceased, and nothing making sense. Tadashi is equally confused, as to how he ended up taking care of a deranged eighteen-year-old who seems to be some kind of time traveller from the early 50s.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-Gyo and *very* post-Uzumaki, assuming that Uzumaki takes place somewhere around 1952. Nothing changes in the Gyo verse except that Shuichi from Uzumaki is now in it.  
> Warning: T I M E S K I P S.

It was hard, trudging around a mostly ruined Japan trying to find people who hadn’t been turned into those gassy machine-people thingies, but it had to be done, didn’t it? Some people were immune, and the more of those people who stuck together and helped the group from Kyoto University with their anti-plague research, the better. The less chance of an actual apocalypse. But even that was a longshot.

Just because someone was immune to the death stench didn’t mean they were sane. Or even remotely nice. Or willing to help save humanity. Some people wanted the human race to die out. Others were too deep in shock (or just downright mad) to do anything but sit there and mutter and cry. Sometimes this whole ‘saving humanity’ thing seemed like a lost cause, but as long as everybody didn’t share that opinion, it might have a chance.

Sometimes, the group (now numbering almost twenty people) split up to go scout for others who weren’t infected. Such was the case today, on August ninteenth of 1994, and so far, Tadashi’s day had consisted mainly of walking aimlessly down some road not really thinking he’d find anyone, occasionally passing some people or animals who were infected, and trying to properly come to grips with the fact that the world was, for all intents and purposes, ending.

“Alright, again; Kaori is dead. Uncle Koyanagi is dead. Miss Yoshiyama is most likely dead. Most living things aside from plants are infected with the death-stench. Kaori is dead. Uncle Koyanagi is dead...”

Repeating what had happened over and over again only helped a little, but it was better than going completely mad like some people--hold on a second, is that a body? One that isn’t infected?

Tadashi ran over to the small ditch by the side of the road, where there appeared to be a corpse that wasn’t infected. Yes, wait, hold on, it wasn’t a corpse, he was breathing! Finally! It had been at least a month since the last addition to the group of not-infected people.

Albeit, the person who Tadashi had just found looked like he was about to die any second. He was alarmingly pale and skinny, looking like he hadn’t eaten or slept in maybe a month or longer (assuming it was even possible to survive longer than a month with no food or sleep). His clothes were muddy, bloody, and in tatters, any skin visible was scratched and bruised. His glasses were cracked, and his curly black hair was completely matted. Nobody was in good shape given the whole apocalypse thing, but this guy was in particularly bad shape.

Oh well. If Tadashi could save him, that’d be one more person to add to the not-infected count, and with humanity on the brink of destruction, the phrase 'everyone matters’ was more true than ever.

Usually, the group found people who were awake and convinced them to join them to help look for others, and they’d walk back to wherever everyone else was. Tadashi hadn’t been counting on having to carry an unconscious person back to where they had made camp earlier. How annoying. Thank god said unconscious person didn’t weigh much. That being said, Tadashi wasn’t exactly at his physical peak at the moment, but he could manage.

***

Shuichi didn’t know why he screamed as soon as he managed to realize he was conscious. Most likely because he didn’t want to be conscious. Being frozen in time with the Spiral inside him should have killed him. It really should have. Maybe Shuichi wanted it to have killed him...   
...And the fact that he appeared to be in a very unfamiliar room wasn’t helping.

Somebody as unfamiliar as the place rushed into the room, looking somewhat alarmed. A tall, somewhat beaten-up-looking man in his twenties.

“Hey, you’re awake. Are you alright?”

“I...”

Shuichi could feel his breathing accelerating, his body sweating, blood rushing to his head. He felt dizzy.

“I...uh...wha...where...oh god...”

At this point, Shuichi literally couldn’t talk. He was shaking too hard, hyperventilating too hard, and he felt like he couldn’t move his lips or tongue properly at all. His vision blurred. He passed out again.

***

What an introduction. The guy had had a panic attack, stuttered a few slurred syllables, then fainted. Tadashi sighed. He knew that not everybody could take the literal apoclypse particularly well. Seriously, he was surprised that he himself hadn’t broken down at the sight of the infected people on those machines.

***

Ten minutes later, Shuichi woke up again. This time, there was no screaming, and no (particularly intense) panicking. That stranger was still there. Who was that guy? He looked in bad shape. Then again, everyone in Kurozu-Cho was.

But where were they? Kurozu-Cho was, well...it was ruined. There were no rooms, much less rooms with fuctional lighting. Maybe...dare Shuichi even think it? Maybe this wasn’t Kurozu-Cho. No, that wasn’t possible. But the fact that there was someone else in town who wasn’t contaminated by the Spiral was a good thing. Shuichi couldn’t feel any kind of Spiral in that other guy. Literally none. Once again, something that wasn’t supposed to be possible in Kurozu-Cho. This room, that random guy, they were paradoxes.

In fact, there wasn’t a single spiral at all, anywhere in this room. That was definitely worth trying to talk to a complete stranger over, even to Shuichi. He took a deep breath, and tried his best to speak coherently;

“Th-this room...where are we? There...there are no spirals.”

“I don’t know what spirals have to do with anything, but okay then. We’re somewhere around Tokyo. You’re lucky we found you, you probably woulda died out there.”

Tokyo. He said ‘we’re somewhere around Tokyo.’ Somewhere around Tokyo. Not Kurozu-Cho. Not Kurozu-Cho. Tokyo was not Kurozu-Cho, Shuichi wasn’t in Kurozu-Cho, Shuichi was not in Kurozu-Cho, there were no spirals, no spirals...

“Hey, you okay? You’re hyperventilating again.”

“I’m...not in Kurozu-Cho, there are no spirals, how did I get out of Kurozu-Cho?”

“Who are you, and what’s with you and spirals, anyway? I don’t know how you got out of this Kurozu-Cho place, I found you passed out in a ditch by the side of the road.”

Realizing he was shaking again, Shuichi took a deep, shaky breath to try to calm down. It seemed like this man had never heard of Kurozu-Cho. ‘What’s with you and spirals,’ he’d asked! That’s right, the Spiral wasn’t here; for the first time in months, probably years, Shuichi’s senses weren’t clouded over with that abominable force that controlled Kurozu-Cho. He could see things properly (or almost properly, what with his cracked glasses and all), he couldn’t hear that horrible voice taunting him and telling him to join it in the spiral. The air around him didn’t feel like every atom making it up was writhing around in discomfort. This place, whatever it was, didn’t feel wrong. This was not Kurozu-Cho.

“M-my name is Shuichi S-Saito, a-and the...forget spirals, forget them, t-t-to hell with spirals, haha!”

This Shuichi guy clearly wasn’t sane. Nope. He’d completely lost it. Spirals! What the heck was that supposed to mean, there are no spirals, forget spirals, to hell with spirals. Some aesthetic stuff was hardly anyone’s top priority right now! And speaking of aesthetic, that outfit was straight out of the 1940s.

“Alright then, hello, Shuichi. My name is Tadashi Kubota. This place is the current location of the, er, random group of surviving humans with immunity to the plague. Welcome.”

Surviving humans with immunity to the plague? That didn’t sound good.

“What plague?”

“What do you mean, what plague? The whole world’s been infected with it for almost two months now!”

“W-wait, the whole world is infected with a plague?”

“Where have you been living, the past two months?! Of course the whole world’s infected with a plague!”

“In a row house! But that is irrelevant, what plague?”

The man called Tadashi sighed, facepalmed, then went on;

“The gas plague? The death stench? There are plenty of names for it. It’s gruesome as all hell. The bodies have already made enough people puke up their guts, but we’re trying to find an antidote. I don’t know how you don’t know about this!”

“Of course I don’t know! I’ve been shut in Kurozu-Cho for the past, god only knows how long, decade or so, maybe?”

“What, or I guess where, is Kurozu-Cho?”

“A town! It’s been all over the news, all over the world! You know, the so-called Kurozu-Cho disaster? Whole town got destroyed...everyone went mad...I don’t know if anyone else survived, frankly, I’m stunned that I survived.”

Tadashi was effectively confused. He’d never heard of a town called Kurozu-Cho, it wasn’t on any map, and he’d certainly never seen the news cover anything to do with a cataclysm there, but Shuichi seemed dead serious about it. He obviously wasn’t joking or lying. Maybe he just really was that crazy?

“I’ve never heard of this Kurozu-Cho place, but I’m really sorry about it being destroyed. Unfortunately, most towns are destroyed now. In the whole world. It’s the apocalypse. And here people thought it’d happen in 2012! No, it came eighteen years early.”

Wait, did Tadashi say eighteen years early? If Shuichi hadn’t already been extremely confused, he certainly was now.

“What do you mean, eighteen years early? If the world was supposed to end in 2012, then technically the apocalypse is happening fifty years early, give or take a couple years.”

Tadashi facepalmed again. This guy was definitely crazy.

“Um, hate to break it to you, but 2012 minus 1994 is not fifty.”

“What does 1994 have to do with anything?”

“Um, it’s 1994? For six months now? Where’ve you been living?”

“Once again, in a row house! And what do you mean, it’s 1994? Do I look sixty years old to you?”

“Of course you don’t look sixty. But what--”

“Then it’s not 1994. The timeskip lasted ten years at absolute longest, so it must be 1960-something.”

Timeskip? 1960-something? What the flying fuck was this guy going on about? Okay, but Tadashi supposed not everyone could keep their sanity after recent...events.

“Listen, I can’t tell if you’re serious or not; it’s definitely 1994, check any calendar. But why on earth would you think it’s the sixties? Why would it be the sixties?”

Shuichi resisted the urge to facepalm. Why would it be the sixties? This Tadashi guy must have some serious issues.

“I can’t tell if you’re serious or not! It can’t be the nineties, that’s impossible!” 

“Dear god. I...I don’t even know how to respond to that. Hold on a sec.”

Tadashi went to another room to retrieve some CDs and various other devices with years and/or dates on them. He returned shortly, handing the stuff to Shuichi.

“There, look. All of this is from between the seventies and now. It’s not the sixties.”

As he stared at the years labeled like ‘1977,’ ‘1986,’ and even ‘1991,’ Shuichi just really didn’t know what to think...other than, is it really the nineties? Was I frozen for forty years instead of ten? Is that really possible? Part of him thought this was a particularly unfunny joke. The other part was scared by how serious Tadashi seemed. 

As if sensing Shuichi’s utter shock and denial over the year, Tadashi grabbed a remote and switched on the TV. There was a comercial on, which was of course utterly useless in this post-apocalyptic world, but there was one key thing about it: it was in color. And pretty decent resolution, too. The kind of video that didn’t exist yet in the sixties.

Seeing the look on the younger man’s face, Tadashi almost expected him to pass out again. He didn’t. He just stared at the screen, looking absolutely horrified. 

“Th-that’s...no...b-but...Tadashi, it’s...”

“Dude. Calm down.”

“But i-if it is 1994...”

“Which it is.”

“Th-then I’m sixty...a-and Kirie, where’s Kirie?!”

Oh, Shuichi was naming people now. And here Tadashi had thought things couldn’t get any harder to deal with? Nooo, now he had some confused time traveller or something from the fifties or sixties who was looking for people who were really probably dead.

“Listen, I’m sorry, but I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

Aaand bam, Shuichi was panicking again.

“S-she’s...Kirie...t-tall, ginger...Kirie Goshima...h-has to b-be alive, she has to!”

Let’s see, Tadashi thought. Tall, ginger, probably old-ass lady named Kirie Goshima...nah. Nothing came to mind.

***Year 2753***

Living a successful life when one was a twentieth-century average woman living in an era where everybody was amazingly smart and strong was hard, but the sheer act of being from the twentieth century gave Kirie an advantage.

This new town, no longer called Kurozu-Cho (but really the same town), never ceased to surprise her; Kirie was sure she’d never forget the day she first learned that Shuichi had died in the year 2096, seven-hundred and seven years ago. He’d lived to be physically a hundred and twenty, and actually a hundred and sixty-two. Or that one of the most well-known pictures in the world right now was one of her and Shuichi tangled up together in the Spiral city, taken by some machine that had been constructed to go down there.

With the technology of the era, people had been able to find out an extensive history of Kurozu-Cho and the Spiral. Heck, they even had a research agency dedicated to figuring out the Spiral! Kirie worked for them, of course--what else was she supposed to do with those horrible memories of it? At least this way, she was doing something about the Spiral. But what was truly unfair was that Shuichi constantly figured into this history. It hurt, just having to talk about him. Her boyfriend. A freaking historical figure whose name was in Social Studies textbooks. He had a school named after him. There were gosh dang artist renditions of what he might have looked like, based on vague description provided in some of the things historians had found from now-ancient eyewitnesses to the Spiral eight-hundred years ago. Kirie had to admit, some of those renditions were very accurate and actually looked a lot like Shuichi. 

Kirie was a bit of a celebrity now, too. A living eyewitness to the Spiral, everyone wanted to hear her story! She’d told it, too; her autobiography was one of the best-selling books of the entire twenty-eighth century. Everyone knew her opening line: This is Kurozu-Cho, the town where I grew up. I would like to share with you...the strange events that took place here. She’d gone on to painstakingly narrate everything she could remember about what had happened. 

It’d all be so much easier if you were here, Shuichi, she thought with a bitter smile. People admire you, now. People believe you. If only you were still alive, Shuichi...to see how you finally got the respect and recognition you deserved. 

Yes, if only Shuichi knew. If he could see the 1952 Disaster Memorial in the center of the town, he’d probably cry. Kirie knew she’d cried. A gigantic stone engravement of herself and Shuichi was overwhelming, really. Just knowing how important the two of them were to culture nowadays was. 

There were novels about them, historical fiction of sorts, and Kirie had read them, and sometimes laughed, as nobody really had any way of knowing what her and Shuichi were actually like at the time. She’d seen all sorts of characterizations of herself and of Shuichi. Some of them had been alarmingly accurate. Others had been hilariously off. But the sheer fact that these things existed was insane. 

Kirie would never get used to this, not in a million years.

***Aaand, back to 1994***

Tadashi had asked around the group, checking for a woman called Kirie Goshima. There seemed to be no such person. About an hour later, Shuichi was locked in a completely empty room. With Tadashi. According to one of the Kyoto group, former psychology student Mariko Horie, it was important that someone else be in there and Tadashi was the only person Shuichi had spoken with since he’d been found. 

The room had no furniture. There was no closet. There was literally not a single object in the entire room, just a floor, some walls, the ceiling. You know, the prerequisites for it being a room. This was actually important, as upon finding that nobody knew of a Kirie Goshima, Shuichi had promptly started trying to kill himself, with anything he could find. This could not be permitted because of the current state of humanity; which is to say, critically endangered. The group couldn’t lose anyone if they wanted to keep ‘critically endangered’ from becoming ‘extinct.’

And now, Shuichi was sitting in a corner of the room, hugging his knees and sobbing hysterically. Still repeating a mantra of ‘Kirie, Kirie, Kirie...’ Tadashi had tried many different ways of trying (somewhat awkwardly) to comfort the poor thing, such as asking about this Kirie woman (Shuichi had tried to talk about her, but could barely speak a coherent sentence without collapsing into tears again), and trying to get him to think of something else (quite the one-track mind Shuichi appeared to have). 

In the end, Tadashi had settled for just sitting awkwardly beside Shuichi and trying not to say anything. After a couple hours, Tadashi was still sitting there awkwardly, and Shuichi had cried himself to sleep. 

***

Mornings usually went the same with this group. Some people woke up early, some people went off for a walk, others slept in until 1 in the afternoon, nobody really cared. Since the apocalypse had just happened, there was no reason to have much of a routine; nobody had any jobs or school to get ready for. Nobody had any real reason to do anything, honestly, but it was great for socializing. As the old saying goes, misery loves company. Everybody was depressed. Everybody was traumatized. Literally everybody. The entire remainder of the human race. 

Because of this shared condition, nearly everybody had become more sympathetic, but this was not the apocalypse they’d imagine. They were immune to the plague that had infected everyone else, they literally couldn’t fall victim to the apocalypse unless they died of some other cause. Nobody was operating stores or restaurants, nobody was living in houses, so there was hardly any shortage of food (or any other essential stuff, honestly). They lived in (physical) comfort, mostly. They had places to stay, they had food and water, they had television, they had people they could talk to. It was by far and away not the apocalypse anyone had ever thought would happen.

Tadashi was one of those few people who had managed to distinguish himself among the growing group of people. Not really as a leader, per se, but definitely something of that sort. He, along with a couple others, was one of those people who was usually allowed to give orders. Or at least, orders disguised as suggestions that everybody listened to. Lately, however, he had been otherwise occupied tying to prevent a certain 1950s guy from comitting suicide.

Or at least, Tadashi had concluded that Shuichi must be from the 1950s. Under any other circumstances, he would have just dismissed the guy as having completely lost it, but witnessing the apocalypse and having Doctor Koyanagi as an uncle can really open up one’s mind. It made sense from his current slightly dazed point of view. The guy’s clothes were literally from the 40s. Tadashi had seen the tags. He spoke in a sort of 40s-50s dialect, with the slang and all (and over-formality). His seeming astonishment at high-definition color TV had seemed way too genuine; given Shuichi’s usual attitude, it seemed highly unlikely that he was really that skilled an actor. Tadashi couldn’t think of a logical explanation for Shuichi, so he decided on the most logical illogical explanation.

Keeping Shuichi away from things he could easily use to attempt suicide was surprisingly easy. After a few days, he’d stopped frantically trying to kill himself and just sort of, well, stopped doing anything, actually. When people went out on their routine ‘finding people’ expeditions, Shuichi was required to go with Tadashi and Mariko, and though they expected a struggle, he actually went without resistance. 

He was obviously far from having recovered, though. He did whatever he was told to do, only spoke when asked to speak, and never did anything of his own accord. On more than one occasion he collapsed, too tired/weak/hungry to stand, and promptly apologized. It was a habit of his, apologizing for everything. And calling everyone ‘-san’ or ‘-sama.’ It really seemed like he actually expected to get in trouble all the time. Whenever he said something without having been told to do so, whenever he collapsed from exhaustion, whenever he stuttered a lot, teared up, panicked, flashed back, it was always ‘I-I’m so sorry, Mariko-sama, T-Tadashi-san...’ (Tadashi had specifically told him not to use ‘-sama’ with him anymore.)

***

One day, while Tadashi, Mariko, and Shuichi were out looking for people, a couple of the infected people walked by them on their machines. Mariko and Tadashi still cringed when they saw those people, because something like that isn’t really something you can just ‘get used to.’ At least, not over the course of a month or two. Shuichi had fainted. Tadashi had ended up carrying him back to the group’s house unconscious for the second time.

***Four Months Later***

Tadashi was okay with referring to a lot of people from the group as his friends; he talked with some of them a lot, joked around, laughed with them, discussed everything from the weather to sex to high school finals to the situation of the earth. 

The group had grown quite a bit in population, and they now inhabited a bunch of houses from a subdivision in former Mongolia. Yes, they had travelled that far over the last four months. They intended to travel the entire world, if possible. Anyway, they had about ninety-something people now, and Tadashi had never really known how tight-knit a group of almost a hundred could be until now. Everyone knew each other. Everyone talked with each other.

Everyone, that is, except Shuichi. Four months he’d spent with these people and he still couldn’t bring himself to try and make friends with anyone aside from Tadashi. 

In these past four months, Tadashi and Shuichi had gotten to know each other rather well; Shuichi was born in December 1934, though he hadn’t aged since he was 18. He’d been in a relationship with a woman named Kirie Goshima. He’d dropped out of high school in grade 12. His parents had comitted suicide. Tadashi had been in a relationship with Kaori Sawahara, and then almost again with Ms Yoshiyama. He’d graduated high school with mostly ‘A’s, and hadn’t gone to university. He’d had a part-time job as a DJ at a radio station in Okinawa. 

Talking about Kaori had been hard for Tadashi. The sight of her infected body, the sight of her charred skeleton, both still haunted his nightmares. It was easier with Shuichi, though; Shuichi had lost his girlfriend, too, and from the sound of it, they’d been really really really in love. According to Shuichi, Kirie Goshima was the epitome of everything good in the world (though Tadashi somehow highly doubted that was entirely true). Tadashi had told Shuichi mostly only good things about Kaori at first, though he’d later explained that she could be very whiny, which prompted Shuichi to admit that Kirie spent 90% of her time exasperated with something. Tadashi mused that the two women would have gotten along about as well as the Doctor and the Master--and then had to explain to Shuichi what Doctor Who was, because the show had begun in 1963 and ended in 1989. 

***

“Oh, y’know what? Next time we go out, you need to get some clothes that aren’t vintage.”

“Wait what do you mean, ‘vintage?’"

“Well, um...fashion has definitely changed since the 40s and 50s, right? Look at everyone else.”

Shuichi whined.

“What? I used to spend a fortune trying to make sure I was always dressed fashionably, only to find myself in an era where everything I wear went out of style decades ago?!”

Tadashi fought back the urge to laugh.

“...Nah, not everything. Chuck Taylors are still a thing. Especially the red ones.”

“Thank goodness. Oh, and I absolutely refuse to wear shorts. Or t-shirts. Or anything so revealing. In my day, only children wore such things, and honestly, it’s just...”

Shuichi shuddered at the very thought of being seen in public wearing such clothing. The infected people were still conscious, weren’t they? It’d be mortifying.

Tadashi burst out laughing and did the best impression of an elderly person’s voice he could.

“You kids these days! Back in my day, we--”

“Don’t.”

***

Even though basically everybody in the group could have had their own house to themselves in this subdivision, almost nobody actually did live alone. Tadashi was in the same house as Shuichi, Mariko, and a couple more close friends. The house was big enough, though everyone ended up sharing rooms. Predictably enough (because Shuichi refused to be with anybody else), Tadashi ended up sharing a room with Shuichi. They stayed in there a lot. Partially because Tadashi didn’t want to go outside much because of the bad-smelling fog, and partially because Shuichi still had his usual habit of being a recluse. 

Months ago, sharing a room had been awkward; They had a bunk bed, Shuichi literally never slept, and spent most of the night either crying or muttering to himself, and Tadashi had always just pretended to be asleep. Oh, and there was the whole ‘playing piano at 6am’ thing Shuichi did.

Now, it was considerably less so.

As per usual most nights, at about eleven o’clock, Shuichi climbed into the top bunk. Obviously, he thought Tadashi was asleep. Tadashi rolled his eyes, though not in genuine exasperation. He grinned, quickly wrapping his arms around the smaller man. Said man gave a small squeak of surprise.

“Go to sleep, Shuichi.”

“I-I thought you were asleep! Ah, I’m so sorry, I’ll just--”

“Nah, stay up here. I don’t mind. Really.”

Shuichi, now blushing like an anime schoolgirl, tried to do as Tadashi had asked and just go to sleep. Which was easier than he’d expected. It was cold, very cold (it was December, after all), but of course Tadashi was not cold and so Shuichi decided that it was a good idea to sneak into the top bunk with him. 

***

“Tadashi-san, what’s the date today?”

“December 2nd. Why?”

The look of pure ‘wot’ that appeared on Shuichi’s face was quite comical, and Tadashi found it a bit hard to stop from burting out laughing.

“That means it’s my birthday, tomorrow. I’ll be turning...uh...”

“Sixty.”

“Ninteen, for all intents and purposes. I am not sixty. I refuse to be sixty.”

Wondering momentarily how one simply ‘refused’ to be sixty, Tadashi made a mental note to himself to get Shuichi a card that had to do with being sixty. That joke would never get old. Never.


	2. Filler chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The actual chapters take a *really* long time to write, so expect some short filler chapters. This is one of those fillers.  
> Sorry.
> 
> NOTE: This filler takes place *before* the ending of Chapter 1. I just...couldn't really fit it in anywhere in Chapter 1.

Shuichi, blushing furiously, glared metaphorical daggers at Tadashi.

"I feel naked. This shouldn't even qualify as clothing!"

Tadashi snorted.

"Get with the times, Shuichi. Shorts are completely normal, nowadays! And besides, you look good in them."

"G-good? I look ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous, a-and indecent! D-don't they have anything less...er, revealing to wear in the nineties?" "Well, yeah, but it's August. Nobody wears non-revealing stuff in the summer!"

The younger man pursed his lips.

"I do. I always wear formal clothing. Except when you make me wear...this."

Tadashi very nearly laughed. What stopped him was that Shuichi actually looked kind of sexy, since he'd gained weight and no longer looked like a Tim Burton drawing come to life. And the boy looked especially sexy when his outfit didn't leave everything to the imagination. But oh well. Tadashi supposed that couldn't last forever. Shuichi was obviously uncomfortable.

"You can change, if you want to. I just wanted to see how you'd look if you didn't wear a suit ninety-nine percent of the time."

"Y-yeah..."

Shuichi came out of the bathroom in his more typical black collared shirt and dress pants, looking thoroughly relieved to not be wearing shorts.

"You know I'm going to have to get revenge for that, right?"

"Revenge? Ha! I look good in basically everything. Or nothing. So what are you gonna do?"

Grinning like that guy from the death circus, Shuichi took his hands out from behind his back, revealing that he was holding a flat iron and a hairbrush.

"I'm going to make you dress properly."

***

Tadashi made an expression frighteningly similar to the one that Kirie made most of the time. He was wearing a suit. His hair was brushed and straightened. Shuichi looked very amused.

"Wow, Tadashi. This look actually suits you a lot better than walking around half-naked all the time."

The older man pouted.

"My hair looks ridiculous! And how do you move in clothes like this? It's kinda restricting."

"Psh. I've run from one end of Kurôzu-Cho to the other in a suit before. It's not hard."

Well, Tadashi supposed he had it coming. Oh well.

"Can I go change back into something comfortable now? It's like, a hundred degrees!"

"Yeah, okay."


	3. Filler Chapter #2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last filler was pretty short, and pure silly crack, so I decided, why not CRUSH MY READERS' HEARTS WITH A MUCH LONGER ANGST FILLER CHAPTER? 
> 
> [EVIL LAUGHTER]

Even though finding out he was from the 1950s explained some things, Tadashi still noticed some things that just seemed...kinda  _off_ about little Shuichi; even by the time Tadashi had found him, aka  _before_ he’d been witness to the real-world post-apocalypse, the boy had seemed in godawful physical and mental/emotional condition.   
He’d already had several meltdowns at the sight of things shaped like spirals, and wouldn’t explain it. Worse, he seemed all to accustomed to the sight of dead bodies--not just dead bodies, actually, but horriffic and gruesomely deformed dead bodies. He didn’t even flinch at the sight of the infected people, and had seemed far more disturbed by learning that they were still alive and conscious on those machines. The kid had nightmares, too--though  _that_ didn’t intrigue Tadashi, not really--what intrigued Tadashi was how Shuichi mumbled the strangest things in his sleep. Things like ‘contaminated by the Spiral’ and ‘get in the row house, it’s safe from the tornadoes.’   
The first time Tadashi and Shuichi had attempted to have sex, Shuichi had spaced out just as Tadashi had climbed on top of him, and then proceeded to panick and mumble about somebody called Kurotani. After much ado and, on Shuichi’s part, apologizing, Tadashi had managed to figure out that somebody called Kurotani must have raped Shuichi, or at least tried to, but Shuichi also wouldn’t say anything else about Kurotani--whom he apparently had been aquainted with before he or she had assaulted him.  
And to top it all off, he had claimed his hometown to be Kurôzu-cho; he said this Kurôzu-cho place was a small coastal town in the Niigata prefecture, tucked away between the sea and the mountains. Which explained his Echigo dialect, but nobody in Tadashi’s group had any record of a town called Kurôzu-cho! No maps, no...no  _anything_! There  _was_  no town called Kurôzu-cho! Yet Shuichi had taken a modern map and pinpointed the exact location where he claimed his supposed hometown to be, only to have Tadashi explain that that area was undevelopped, and Shuichi had said ‘good, I hope it stays that way.’ Had this Kurôzu-cho place been destroyed or something? Was Shuichi just making it all up?  
This was all rather concerning, and Tadashi truly wished Shuichi would talk about it. He’d asked him on multiple occasions, with a different response every time.  
“It’s nothing.”  
“Uh...heh, I need to go. Bye!”  
“Really, nothing happened.”

And, most deeply irritating of all,

“You would never believe me if I told you.”

What was that supposed to mean? Tadashi had seen some  _weird_ things in his lifetime, and Shuichi  _knew_  he had. Tadashi’s past held no secrets to Shuichi; he’d grown up in a middle-class family with a single mom, gotten pretty okay grades in school, gone to some really cool parties, graduated, and gotten a job at a radio station as a DJ. Then, the disease had happened. But Tadashi knew  _nothing_ of Shuichi’s life before waking up in the 90s. 

“Look, Shuichi. If someone told me two years ago that the world’s human and animal population was going to be reduced to one-thirtieth by a gas disease spread by walking fish with biomechanical legs that was originally intended as a weapon for World War 2, do you think I would’ve believed them? I’ve seen stuff, Shuichi. Everyone on the entire planet has.”  
“...Not like Kurôzu-cho, you haven’t. Just trust me, it’s better if you don’t know. You’ll think I’m completely mad.”  
“No! I won’t! I’ve known you for a year, Shuichi, I know you’re sane!”  
“And I’d like your perception of my mental condition to remain like that.”  
“What could possible have happened in this Kurôzu place that’s weirder and less believable than the death stench plague?”

There was a long and very uneasy pause. Shuichi took a deep and shaky breath, struggling to keep his already less-than-great composure.

“A lot of things. At least this death stench plague has a scientific explanation. It’s something modern technology can analyze, figure out, and maybe even resolve, someday. It’s something you can be immune to. It’s something the human mind and body can consciously perceive. It’s not infinite, it’s not a force of nature. It’s something nobody in the entire world can deny the existence of.”

In all honesty, Tadashi didn’t know how to reply to that. Was Shuichi implying that Kurôzu-cho was the subject of supernatural happenings? What did forces of nature have to do with anything, or conscious perception? What was he  _talking_  about?

“And, I guess...whatever happened to your Kurôzu town...wasn’t explainable by science?”  
“Oh, Tadashi, it was so much  _more_ than that. What happened to Kurôzu-cho is just so above  _everything_ humans are able to fathom in their entire minds, it just isn’t comprehensible. Oh dear, listen to me. I already sound mad.”  
“No. You don’t. You still don’t know for sure I won’t believe you if you explain.”

At this, Shuichi whirled around to face Tadashi, trembling violently, tears now streaming down his pale face.

“Yes, I damn well  _do_ know! Listen, Tadashi, I wasn’t the only person who lived in that town when it was destroyed. There were others. I had a family, once, I had a girlfriend, and I had plenty of less-than-friendly aquaintances who lived there, too. They were there, like I was. They witnessed what happened just as well as I did, the bodies, the row houses, the hurricanes, the disappearances,  _everything_. And yet they, who had seen everything that took place in that town and thus had every reason to believe me, called me a freak! They treated me like some  _wild animal,_ even though they were _there_! So tell me, Tadashi, why you would believe me? You weren’t there, you weren’t even  _born_ yet! And if people with concrete proof that I was right still ostracized me, how would someone without even a shred of evidence believe me? You tell me! My word is  _nothing_ to go by!”

Completely unknowing of what to say, Tadashi simply stood there paralyzed in utter shock. Was that true? Had Shuichi really been a town pariah, in his day? Was the destruction of Kurôzu-cho really so phantasmagorical as to be unbelievable even to witnesses? If so, why did  _Shuichi_ believe it?  
Finally, still utterly at a loss for words, Tadashi approached Shuichi slowly and wrapped his arms around him, holding him tightly in a confused attempt to comfort him.

“You know what? You, uh, you don’t absolutely  _have_ to tell me, I-I’ll let it go, okay?”  
“Tadashi...”  
“I was just worried, y’know? You don’t seem mad, but you hardly seem okay, right? And I just, I guess, I wanted to know what happened because I just thought you seemed like you needed to tell someone, but I shouldn’t’ve been so pushy about it, I’m sorry.”  
“N-no, don’t apologize, i-it’s okay, I...I shouldn’t’ve blown up at you like that, you were just worried, I understand. It’s just...Kurôzu-cho was such an awful place, it’s hard for me to talk about it.”  
“That’s totally okay.”

\--- _one week later_ \---

Something like the Eternal Spiral wasn’t something one could just forget about, really. It plagued one’s mind even long after one had escaped it. Even Shuichi, who had never been infected by it until he was frozen in time, found himself still thinking about it constantly. He could still almost hear its awful voice taunting him, as if it could still speak to him this far away from where Kurôzu-cho had been. Even after Shuichi escaped, it still had his mind utterly enthralled.   
Worst of all, he was the only person who knew. He always had been. Since day one--no, since  _before_ day one, Shuichi had been the only person in the entire world who knew the truth about Kurôzu-cho. There were witnesses, yes, but nobody could really  _see_ it,  _feel_ it, not like Shuichi could. In forcing those awful visions on him and absolutely refusing to relinguish its hold on him even outside of its town, the Spiral had truly violated Shuichi on every possible level, and nobody else would ever know.  
If just wasn’t fair. Shuichi truly wanted to tell Tadashi about Kurôzu-cho. Just for the sake of having told someone. Just so that someone else would at least have  _heard_ the story, even if that someone then cut all ties with Shuichi and he was once again left completely alone, at least then he wouldn’t be the only person on the entire planet Earth who knew.  
So, one day, Shuichi made up his mind to tell Tadashi. Tell him and then figure out the quickest way to kill himself. Someone  _had_ to know, or Shuichi really would go mad.

\------

“You’re sure you really want to tell me?”  
“Y-yes...You were right, a week ago, I really do need to tell someone. I-I feel like if I don’t, I’ll go mad for real.”  
“Yeah, that would be bad...”  
“Kurôzu-cho used to seem like a normal town, you see, b-but it wasn’t. There’s a thing--no, not a thing, a  _force of nature_ called the Eternal Spiral. It only exists in and acts on Kurôzu-cho. It kills everyone and everything in that town to complete itself, and that’s one thing I can’t explain, the Spiral. It manifested itself perceivably as, w-well, spirals! But it was, it  _is_ , the most infathomably larger-than-life thing that actually exists, and thus it was never supposed to be seen, felt, heard, et cetera, by any living thing. The sight of it, the sound of it, they drive people mad. It could turn people, plants, and animals into spirals...my parents were the first to go.”

Tadashi did not understand a word Shuichi was saying, but decided against letting him know that.

“I don’t think I ever saw anybody throw themselves head-first into the Spiral than my father. The bodies, oh  _god_ , Tadashi, the  _bodies_ , they were  _horifying_. Limbs twisted and turned into spirals, tongues elongated into spirals, anything and everything that could possible be turned into a spiral  _was_ turned into a spiral. Even the plants, even the  _water_ in Kurôzu-cho was contaminated. Contaminated by the Spiral.”

Shuichi seemed to be shaking again. His voice was getting higher, like he was re-living whatever had happened. Tadashi put a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“F-first, there were deaths and disappearances, then there were hurricanes. The hurricanes destroyed plenty, b-but then the air pressure got very strange, s-so that moving to fast made a tornado. If you yelled, you made a tornado. If you walked too quickly,  _breathed_ to hard, or fell over. The town was reduced to rubble, and the only buildings left were these rundown wooden row houses from the eighteenth century, so everybody crammed into them--but more and more people kept coming to Kurôzu-cho, b-because of the hurricanes, everyone knew there was a disaster, but we had no contact with the outside world at this point, there was no way out of the town. If you tried to leave by sea, it sucked you down by whirlpool. If you tried to leave by air, a tornado crashed your aircraft. If you tried to walk...y-you got lost in an endless maze, o-or just taken right back to Kurôzu-cho.”

Now, Shuichi was definitely shaking. His voice was shaky and volatile, and his eyes brimmed with tears. He seemed so dead serious, like this seemingly nonsensical story had really happened--and even if Tadashi  _didn’t_  believe it, he had to admit it was obvious Shuichi firmly did.

“Eventually, I went to the center of the Spiral myself...K-Kirie, she wanted to go, she thought her parents would be there, b-but they were dead, and then...a-and then...oh, Tadashi, the last thing I said to her was to leave me behind, b-but I didn’t mean like this, I wanted  _her_ to live, not me! I was frozen in her arms, I thought forever, b-but no, I woke up in the 1990s to find the entire  _world_ nearly dead a-and  _Kirie_ gone!”

Neither Tadashi nor Shuichi spoke for several seconds, and Shuichi burst into tears.

“I was a recluse, but I saw it all anyway. I had visions. I saw  _everything_. Everyone in Kurôzu-cho, Tadashi,  _thousands_ of people, I saw them  _all_  die! A-and there was  _nothing_ I could do! K-Kirie didn’t want to leave, a-and I couldn’t just leave her, and nobody believed me, oh,  _Tadashi_ , you must think I’m c-completely insane!”  
“I don’t think you’re insane, Shuichi.”

And now it was Shuichi who did not believe Tadashi.

“B-but surely...you can’t...”  
“I believe you, actually.”

Shuichi stared up at Tadashi, looking like he almost wanted to think Tadashi was telling the truth, but just couldn’t conceive it.

“Look, I’m not gonna say I understand a lot of what you just said--about the Eternal Spiral and stuff--but I do believe that all that really happened. That there really was a place called Kurôzu-cho, and that all that stuff happened there, and that you saw it happen...I believe you, I swear, I’m not lying.”  
“You...”  
“You aren’t mad, Shuichi, anyone sane can tell that, and I...I-I really appreciate that you told me all this. It was obviously pretty hard.”

Shuichi made probably the most relieved sound Tadashi had ever heard in his life and collapsed into the older man’s arms, still shaking from sheer emotional intensity, but no longer quite as terrified as he had been mere seconds ago. Tadashi raked his fingers through Shuichi’s hair.

“Come on, let’s, uh...watch a movie or something...that was intense, heh...”  
“Y-yeah, I agree..."


End file.
